9-2-2010 Afghanistan:
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."
All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.
"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."
Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.
President Hamid Karzai is Pashtun, from a village near Kandahar, and he has six brothers. So the natural question arises: Has anyone in the Karzai family been bacha baz? Two Afghans with close connections to the Karzai family told me they know that at least one family member and perhaps two were bacha baz. Afraid of retribution, both declined to be identified and would not be more specific for publication.
As for Karzai, an American who worked in and around his palace in an official capacity for many months told me that homosexual behavior "was rampant" among "soldiers and guys on the security detail. They talked about boys all the time."
He added, "I didn't see Karzai with anyone. He was in his palace most of the time." He, too, declined to be identified.
In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called "dancing boys" a "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape."
So, why are American and NATO forces fighting and dying to defend tens of thousands of proud pedophiles, certainly more per capita than any other place on Earth? And how did Afghanistan become the pedophilia capital of Asia? ..for the remainder of the story.. Joel Brinkley
September 2, 2010
Afghanistan's dirty little secret
August 18, 2009
Luckless Predator Only Attracted to Undercover Cops
8-18-2009 National:
It’s official. There’s nobody in the chat rooms but pedophiles and undercover police.
On Thursday, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of an Indiana man whose online efforts to proposition underage girls led him to not one, not two, but three undercover cops, none of whom apparently knew about the others.
The case began in August 2006, when aspiring sexual predator James Daniel started an online conversation with Amanda_13, a fake 13-year-old girl voiced by Sergeant Richard Howard of the Porter County Sheriff’s Department.
After several highly explicit chats, Daniel asked Amanda_13 to meet him at a park in Valparaiso, Indiana, to have sex. When he showed up, he was arrested for inducing an individual under 18 to engage in criminal sexual activity.
When Secret Service agents searched Daniel’s computer, they found logs of chats with two other apparent minors, who described themselves as 13 and 15 years old, respectively. Federal prosecutors introduced the chats at Daniel’s trial as evidence of his perverted motives.
Supposedly, it was only after Daniel was convicted that the feds realized that one of those girls, daisy13_Indiana, was also a cop working the very same Secret Service operation. They informed Daniel’s attorney, who appealed on the grounds that the government improperly withheld information that would have proven entrapment.
The case became even more bizarre when the three-judge appellate panel reviewing the conviction saw the screen name of the third supposed teenager, blonddt, and recognized it from an earlier case.
“To our surprise, the government was unaware until this panel told it at oral argument that the other screen name, blonddt, was also an officer from the Indiana operation,” wrote Judge Diane Wood (.pdf) on Thursday.
Despite the prosecutorial missteps, the panel upheld Daniel’s conviction, ruling that the additional chat logs still showed his intent to commit a crime. Daniel is serving a sentence of 17-and-a-half years in prison, followed by supervised release for life.
There’s no evidence in the record that he ever succeeded in talking with a real underage girl. ..Source.. by Kevin Poulsen, Wired News
October 13, 2008
Just hating pedophiles won't keep children safe
10-13-2008 Canada:
Torches and pitchforks will not drive the monsters from our realm.
Neither prosecution nor protest will protect our children from pedophiles. Our common sense and humanity might. But on this issue, both are in short supply.
Pedophiles live among us, as we were so starkly reminded last weekend when two young girls were abducted and assaulted. And they will continue to live among us. Not just known offenders, who complete jail sentences and return to the community, like Danial Todd Gratton, the accused in last weekend's abductions.
New pedophiles are being created as we speak. Today's victim of sexual abuse can become tomorrow's abuser.
The gene pool, it seems, is also spawning new pedophiles. Research now indicates pedophilia, in some cases, behaves like its own sexual orientation, as vulgar as that might seem to the natural order of things.
Whatever the cause, experts say pedophiles don't choose their sexual desires any more than we do. Nor can we pick pedophiles out of a crowd. Yes, some are anti-social, slovenly and odd.
But I once knew a kindly St. Albert family man -- a former Citizen of the Year -- who was a success in his profession and pegged for a career in politics. Until he was charged with sexually abusing the family babysitters.
I was appalled at the time. Just as we all were by last weekend's abductions. Seducing or forcing children into sexual activity is a gross violation of the trust they place in adults, as their guardians.
But I've come to believe we fail that trust by blinkering ourselves with disgust and hatred. The time has come to dial down emotion and look to the community for pragmatic answers.
That's not to say the justice system has no role to play in a common-sense response. One answer is for the courts to use dangerous offender legislation more often against repeat, cold-hearted sex offenders. Yes, in some cases you throw away the key.
But what of the first-time offender? Or the teenager who recognizes his urges, is horrified by them, but has no place to turn? Or the man caught with child pornography, who may be just starting to explore his deviant sexuality?
The experts say there is no cure for pedophilia. But that is not to say it can't be treated.
The Phoenix Program at Alberta Hospital Edmonton has demonstrated success in reducing recidivism of sex offenders to below four per cent, compared to 25 per cent for those who receive no treatment.
But no system is perfect -- even old-school castration failed to prevent recidivism. Such is the baffling nature of the human sex drive.
The big problem with treatment is its availability, or lack thereof. Governments aren't exactly throwing money at research or treatment centres for sexual deviants. Sympathy for the devil wins you no votes.
Dr. Fred Berlin, one of the world's leading experts on pedophilia, believes demonizing pedophiles has made the world less safe. In a climate of hate, it's almost impossible to get pedophiles into early treatment, though the evidence is that many begin molesting at age 13.
Mental-health professionals in the U.S. and Canada are now legally required to report a client who has offended or is at risk to offend. Berlin says he once got regular calls from men who truly wanted be treated for their pedophilic urges. Once the law changed, and he was required to report possible predators, the phone stopped ringing.
Yes, our hate forces pedophiles underground, where they are hard to track. If driven from one community, they will slip quietly into another.
And a pedophile unable to connect even loosely with community -- get a job, a place to live -- is much more of a threat.
Pedophilia is likened to alcohol and called a craving disorder.
Like an alcoholic, an anxious, depressed or despondent pedophile is much more likely to act out on his cravings. Knowing that, the answer seems obvious. Why not create a support and accountability network like Alcoholics Anonymous for pedophiles?
Good idea. So good, in fact, that it's been around for years. A mostly unheralded and underfunded program known as COSA, or circles of support and accountability, began in Ontario in the mid-1990s.
Volunteers from the Mennonites and other faith communities were asked by a pioneering corrections official to serve on a committee, or circle, that offered not only a watchful eye over the pedophile, but a sense of connection to community.
Volunteers helped the offender find places to work and live. Daily contact and weekly meetings allowed for monitoring and for a place where the ex-convict could share his thoughts and feelings.
COSA not only spread across Canada, but to eight other countries that enthusiastically supported a program that reduced recidivism in hard-core offenders by at least 80 per cent. COSA now exists in every major city in Canada -- except Edmonton.
The Mustard Seed church in Edmonton's inner city used to operate circles for released pedophiles. But Kris Knutson, the church's corrections chaplain, says the church was simply unable to continue.
"It was just so resource-intensive, we had to make a call," he said. The call was to shut down the demanding circles and focus on other offender programs.
Knutson isn't happy with the situation. Edmonton, with its surrounding jails, becomes home for many released pedophiles.
"When these men are pushed underground and isolated from the community, they are at a much greater risk to re-offend," he says. "They hide and there's no one to keep them accountable."
Knutson said the biggest roadblock to maintaining COSA in Edmonton was finding volunteers. Stigma kept many from participating. And those who agreed to volunteer suffered from the stigma, too.
Many were denounced by friends and family as pedophile sympathizers. Some felt their jobs were at risk if they continued. Ultimately, COSA folded in Edmonton because of this community's climate of hatred.
It is a bitter irony. Pedophiles continue to live among us -- unseen and unsupervised, at greater risk of re-offending -- because we couldn't drive the monster out of ourselves. ..News Source.. by Scott McKeen
August 18, 2007
Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis. For Law-Enforcement Officers Investigating Cases of Child Sexual Exploitation
1987
Abstract:
This booklet provides a behavioral analysis of child molesters. The terms child molesters and pedophiles are defined and distinctions are drawn between the two. The second section develops a law enforcement typology differing from those of mental health professionals, focusing on pre-arrest behavior or pre-identification behavior of child molesters that is of most value to law enforcement. The third section focuses on the law enforcement investigation, including combination offenders, sex rings, incest cases, female offenders, and adolescent offenders. The fourth section focuses on recognizing and identifying the highly predictable sexual behavior patterns of pedophiles or preferential child molesters. The fifth section focuses on collection of pornography and erotica, since pedophiles almost always collect it. The sixth section focuses on behavior of the offender after identification. The seventh section focuses on four major problems that make the investigation of child sexual abuse and exploitation difficult for law enforcement officers and the criminal justice system. A discussion of considerations in obtaining and using expertise search warrants in cases of preferential child molesters is given. A bibliography is included. (ABL) ..more.. by Kenneth V. Lanning,
May 30, 2007
Child abuse and the media
[[[[[SNIP]]]]]
NAMING AND SHAMING
Identifying the perpetrators
Throughout the Western world, awareness of child sexual abuse has led to action by members of the public to draw attention to horrific crimes against children (Goddard 1997a). British newspapers have carried many articles on the dangers created for children when convicted child sex offenders are released from prison. The British media demonstrated that they were prepared to identify or "out" the perpetrators. A selective review (Goddard 1997a) demonstrated that tabloid newspapers carried particularly graphic studies.
The Liverpool Echo on 17 June 1997, for example, devoted almost its entire front page to an "exclusive" by Jason Teasdale (1997) to the effect that a "convicted paedophile" would soon be released. Broadsheet newspapers, for example The Guardian, also carried such stories. Interestingly, The Guardian, exactly one week earlier, had carried the news that this particular man was to be released, under the headlines "In a few days this man, a convicted child rapist, will be released. Police say he is ‘incredibly dangerous’. Should you be told if he moves in next door?", and "Nightmare on any street" (Bowcott and Clouston 1997). The story in The Guardian was accompanied by a photograph of the man, who had been detained after being found carrying a bag of books and toys. He admitted to the police that he was searching for a child (Bowcott and Clouston 1997).
The Guardian story summarised the issues in its opening: "Newspapers are ‘outing’ paedophiles and their homes are consequently being fire-bombed. Do child molesters deserve a second chance after they have served their sentences? Or has the public the right to know when such a menace moves in next door? (Bowcott and Clouston 1997: 2)
The role of newspapers in "outing" convicted child molesters is examined in another piece in the same paper by Gary Younge (1997). Paul Horrocks, acting editor of the Manchester Evening News, a paper described as exposing several child molesters, is quoted as saying that a newspaper takes risks when it does so: "The paper must balance children’s safety with the threat of mob rule; it pits the chance that a paedophile may re-offend against the fact that he has served his time and may be denied the right to resume a normal life. ‘There is a risk that people will take the law into their own hands. But there is a greater risk that children will be hurt. If you can’t take risks to protect children, then when can you?’ [Paul Horrocks] says." (Younge 1997: 3)
Risks there certainly are: "One of those ‘outed’ by the Manchester Evening News suffered physical and verbal abuse from his neighbours and moved away as a result. Horrocks describes as ‘regrettable’ a case of mistaken identity in which an innocent man was attacked by an angry mob" (Younge 1997: 3).
The anger and the potential for tragedy are described in the piece by Bowcott and Clouston (1997: 3): "In May 1994, a girl aged 14 called Samantha Penell died after the house in which she had been staying was burnt down. Those who set fire to the building were looking for a paedophile."
They recount other stories: a convicted child molester stabbed to death in Edinburgh, and a man in Manchester badly beaten by a gang who wrongly believed that he was a child rapist(Bowcott and Clouston 1997). Such problems also occur in Australia. The release in New South Wales of convicted child killer John Lewthwaite prompted a considerable degree of media attention. After his release his new home was attacked by local residents, angry at his presence in their community.
[[[[SNIP]]]] ..more.. by Chris Goddard and Bernadette J. Saunders
MONSTERS WITH HUMAN FACES, The Guardian
9-17-1997 United Kingdom:
[[[[SNIP]]]]
Paedophiles are the most feared and loathed men in our society.
All over the country there are groups, some no bigger than a coffee circle of concerned mothers, whose sole aim is to hunt down and hound out paedophiles in their neighbourhoods. The names of these ad hoc campaigns - Campaign Against Paedophiles, Parents Against Child Abuse, People Power, Know Your Neighbour, Parents Aiming to Right Abysmal Sex Offender Laws, Unofficial Child Protection Unit - reveal their simple missionary zeal. It is a movement from the streets upwards. Local newspapers often provide them with the raw material; trawling through back numbers, they turn up details of long-past child abuse cases.
The Oxford Mail and Bournemouth Echo keep informal registers of sex offenders, and the Scottish Daily Record published a "Gallery of Shame" of 38 convicted paedophiles. The Sunday tabloids devote pages and reporters to doing nothing else but hunting "child sex monsters".
Paedophilia has become a national obsession.
Such outings inevitably lead to violence. In May 1994, the home of Dennis Butlin was firebombed and a young girl inside burnt to death; in February 1995, Lawrence Leydon was stabbed to death in Edinburgh; last August in Teignmouth, 44-year-old David Moist was severely battered after vigilantes broke into his flat brandishing a fire extinguisher; in the same month in Belfast, 53-year-old Desmond Moonan was found strangled in his flat. They were all vicious attacks. But when we insert "paedophile" before these men's names, our hearts harden: they got what they deserved.
Whatever has been done to them and however they are treated, we have no sympathy for paedophiles. What they do strips them of any possibility of redemption. Who could defend the rights, the life even, of a man who wants to bugger a four-year-old? Schemes are continually proposed to provide indefinite monitoring, from electronic tagging to chemical castration.
[[[[SNIP]]]]
..more.. by The Guardian
"PEADOPHILES OUT!"
Thanks mainly to 'The Guardian' (19 ii '97), I can begin to provide a historical record of recent paedo-hysteria in Britain.
MAY, 1994. Samantha Pennell, aged 14, was killed after the house of paedophile Dennis Butlin was firebombed. Butlin himself escaped.
FEBRUARY, 1995. Lawrence Leydon, a convicted paedophile, was stabbed to death in his home in Edinburgh, nine months after being released on probation.
JUNE, 1996. Residents on the Kingsmead estate in Hackney, east London, warned of vigilante action if Sidney Coke, part of a paedophile ring that tortured to death a local teenager, was allowed to return.
AUGUST, 1996. The 'Manchester Evening News' publishes details of local paedophiles, following a trend set by the 'Sunday Express' (London) and the Bournemouth Evening Echo. Other local papers followed suit.
SEPTEMBER, 1996. 53-year Brixton mother of mentally handicapped boy bludgeons newly released 65-year "paedophile" with a metal spring and smashed bricks through all his car's windows. (Awarded 4 months prison, suspended for 18 months, plus 18 months probation, plus £150 compensation.) (South London Press, 1 xi '96.)
NOVEMBER, 1996. George Taylor fled his Birmingham flat under police escort after residents discovered he had been jailed for a child sex offence.
JANUARY, 1997. A mob surrounded a Department of Social Security hostel in Stirling, demanding that Alan Christie, a convicted paedophile, be forced to leave.
FEBRUARY, 1997. Parents in Dunoon, Argyll, warned they would take action amid fears that up to 10 convicted child sex offenders had moved in nearby.
FEBRUARY, 1997. 'Anti-Paedophile March' in Manchester used placards drawn up as follows "Peadophiles Out!" {sic} and "COUNSIL PUTTING OUR ChilDREN AT RISK!" {sic, though an effort had been made to correct the mis-spelling}. A pensioner mistaken for a photographed paedophile was assaulted and had his wrist broken.
FEBRUARY, 1997. UK police, civil liberties campaigners and child protection groups....warned that the plan [for a register of paedophiles] would lead to violence against those named while doing nothing to protect children.
MARCH, 1997. The 47-year-old East Lothian father of a newly released paedophile had both his legs broken by a mob.
MARCH, 1997. Lewisham[?] Borough Council (London) release many details of the appearance and convictions of a recently discharged "paedophile" prisoner so that a lynch mob can be prepared for his arrival on a particular council estate. ..more.. by
Paedophilia: plague or panic?
Abstract:
A punitive socio-legal policy towards sex offenders against minors has been driven by public demand. The perception of an appallingly high incidence of serious abuse by incorrigible men has been encouraged by press sensationalism, but criminal statistics and recidivism studies fail to confirm either an escalation of sex crimes against minors or the inevitability of recidivism. Retrospective victim studies have given alarming indications of the prevalence of abuse, but they have often included trivial incidents and the experiences of sexually active adolescents that do not involve real paedophiles.
Clinical observation demonstrates the devastating effects of child sex abuse, but community surveys suggest that minor incidents have only minor effects, except when accompanied by other stresses. Statutory changes and prison statistics reveal the increasing punitiveness of criminal justice. Exaggerated perception of risk produces undue restrictions on children's freedom and on their interactions with teachers and other adults. Assumptions of incorrigibility impede the rehabilitation of offenders through vigilantism, stigmatization and barriers to employment. This amplifies deviance and does not protect children.
Keywords: PAEDOPHILIA; SEX; ABUSE; SOCIO-LEGAL; POLICY ..more.. by D. West
